Good Morning Chernobyl
by Fully Automatic Toaster
Summary: BBC thought it would be a great idea to film a documentary in the Zone. The stalkers hired for it didn't think so, but 30,000 rubles a day is an excellent pacifier. Of course, rarely do things go according to plan, and the Zone is a fickle mistress. (Caution: coarse language and usual Zone inhumanity.)
1. Chapter 1: Day One

I decided to rewrite this chapter on the basis of it containing an excess of profanity compared to the later chapters, to make it more readable and less off turn off for more readers without compromising the overall grim atmosphere of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Also, I want to mention Nail Strafer and Portuguese Irish, as well as all of my reviewers, for their inspiring and heartwarming comments, which keep me motivated to continue writing this story, and remind me that it is the readers who make the writer; without them, my words are silent. Thank you again.

I also want to thank BobBQ (Tiger's Spring) and Hauuu (The Way Home). Yours were the first fan fictions I read and also the greatest, and both of you inspired me to write this story. It's because of you that I realized that fan fiction has real merit as artistry, and its my readers that make it worth double the effort.

Anyways, enjoy, leave a favorite or a follow if you like it, and a review if you're feeling especially altruistic. I'm now committing to approximately weekly updates with chapters of varying length, but generally from ~2,000 to 3,500 words in length, following Natasha's misadventures through the Zone, armed with only her (slow) wits, (unimpressive) reflexes, and her scant few friends.

* * *

Natasha woke up at the bottom of a storm shelter with a sore head and three hungry-eyed men in anoraks and charcoal filter masks watching her while eating stale bread, and it took her brain a minute to catch up with developments.

Meanwhile, her camera crew was hunched in the corner, playing last night's footage through headphones. From them the occasional muffled giggle was heard.

Natasha remained lying down in her sleeping bag, staring at the men with her eyes somewhere between paralyzed terror and baffled amusement. Moment by moment, fragments of last night returned. She saw a stack of tuna and tushonki cans in the corner by the stairs, six bottles of vodka, all empty and lined up the steps. She looked at the men, each of whose eyes revealed little except boredom and strong notes of starvation and obsession. Tolya, a little taller and darker, with terrible puns to boot. Grisha, who feared neither bottle nor the radiation inherent in Zone mushrooms. Pasha, who called his double barrel Irina and lubed her by hand, then licked the grease.

These were their guards.

Natasha quietly formed the cross on her chest, even though she had not attended service in at least a decade. Apparently the generation after communism didn't find church so attractive as their forbearers.

"Good morning," she hazarded.

"And you," they chorused back, a solemn dirge of moaning growls that every stalker seemed to speak in. A funny thing that was, an artifact of the late 80s, the early 90s as the East opened to the West. The rest of the world insisted stalkers were predators of young women and perverts. Natasha knew this definition, kept to it for her portion of the year spent in Britain and Ireland. Yet her old friends and family of Ukraine and Russia knew stalkers as the damned fools who traipsed into the Zone for kicks and giggles, and now, riches beyond a man's wildest dreams. Day trippers with Kalashnikovs and vodka shots— for the radiation, you see.

Last night, a stalker told her she needed at least a half liter for the radiation she'd already bumbled through. She told him that was nonsense, the roads were clean, and vodka didn't clean anything out except your skull. He'd returned her a crystal clear, extended explanation illustrated with profanity, vulgar gestures, and some very violent stick figure drawings, which she was looking at right now, and blushing hard. Right next to it, she saw a list of tally marks:

G: 1

T: 1

S: 1

Anglichane: 1/2

N: 2 1/2

She fixed on the last number for several seconds, until she realized N stood for Natasha. She felt her gut heave, and she bolted out of the sleeping bag, tumbled over the barrel fire and scrambled up the steps with her gut wrenching like a struggling pike and spilled herself out over the rough grass in time to upend the contents of her gut into the dirt for the next ten minutes.

At two minutes, a stalker walked up next to her and gently lifted her off the ground, holding her hair back as she grabbed his arm and held on for dear life, soiling everything in her field of view: boots, newspaper, pants, the soil— until from her intestines was purged two and a half liters of drain cleaner quality vodka.

"Bollocks me," she dribbled onto the ground, her mouth slick with digestive fluids. "Why. Why did I do that."

"Because you are a slav, and slavs never change," said the stalker. "Do not worry for your health. The Zone has a strange way of not caring. You can always get new clothes."

"I'll..." she felt another surge coming and doubled over, moaning involuntarily as her insides trembled.

"Swish," said the stalker, forcefully tilting her head back and pouring a packet of sandy powder into her mouth. "Then swallow."

Back in the Big Land, she would have questioned his instructions. Hell, she would still question the hell out of being given random drugs and told to swallow. But one: she was in no position to resist anyway, and two: of all the stupid things she'd done in the last twenty four hours, this seemed the least irrational. At the very least, this stalker didn't look too deformed of a human being, even if he still had the prototypical gaunt face and sunken eyes.

A minute later, the trembling in her gut subsided; almost like a miracle, her nausea slunk away like a tomcat, though the feeling that her insides had just been power-washed with acid did not change. "W-what did you just give me?"

"Beard's tea, concentrate. Not sure what he puts in it, but I don't think it rates organic." The stalker chuckled, patted her on the back, and walked over to the main bonfire of the Village, now quiet and as ashen as the morning sky. "Miss Palinchak, Tiptoe and I are ready to go whenever you are."

"Tiptoe?" she asked, biting her cheek as her stomach began to yearn for sustenance so shortly after ejecting it at high velocity.

"Up here bright eyes." She looked up to the left and saw Tiptoe sitting on the roof of the barn where most of the rookie stalkers shared bunks, his Baikal sawed-off shotgun laid across his thighs, twirling his Makarov on his finger and eying her with insufferable cockiness. "Morning hot stuff. Enjoy the party?"

"Like my birthday." She gave him a painted smile, rolling her eyes. Some Ukrainian gop with racing stripe tattoos running down his shaved head to his ass cheeks and an ego bigger than the Russian president's imperial ambitions. And somehow he was the other senior guide.

"Hey, Washer; she trying to put me down? I'm not sure I understand all this 'irony' bull this tourist's trying to pull on me."

"Shut up Tiptoe, she's paying us 30,000 rubles a day. Unless you jizz rubles, I suggest you put a cork in your clever box and let the lady have her way."

"I'll have my way," Tiptoe muttered, flaring his lip and spitting a lump of spittle and tobacco to the wind. "When do we set out?"

"Whenever the pizdets feels like." Washer picked up his Kalashnikov-74 and began disassembling it on the floor of the barn, just visible from where Natasha stood. "Pardon my French," he added as she stood there outside the storm shelter, wet with green-gray puke. "I suggest we move soon though. The Zone is a fickle mistress."

—

Getting changed into clean clothes took some time. After being repeatedly warned against radiation by her British camera crew and told that vodka solves everything by the rookies, she shooed all five of them out of the storm shelter, hoped to God no one walked in on her, and changed as fast as she could into new jeans, a white under and a blue denim shirt, buttoned up with a leather jacket and a fisherman's cap, with an American issue window-style rebreather mask slung around her neck. She wiped her knee boots off as best she could with an old sardine tin wrapper and hoped her camera man didn't pan down. There was no mirror to check her face, so she used the ancient 1970s soviet television sitting on the table beneath the tally board. Her breath would still smell like vodka, but for now, technology could not transmit smell. Hopefully that day would never come.

When she came outside with her satchel bag, her watch said 8:45 AM, and the sky said, "Forget that, I'm feeling broody."

Her camera man, Jake, nudged Alex on the microphone; both rolled their eyes and grinned. She thought of snarking at them, and decided she felt too hung over to produce any more wit than was strictly necessary. She had a documentary to film.

"Are we ready to go…" Before she had even finished the question, Washer began walking up the village road to the highway, Tiptoe on his 3 o'clock and the other rookies taking up the flanks and rear. The stalkers hadn't said a word.

"Alright. I guess we go. Jake, are we rolling? Okay, good, good." She took a deep breath.

"This is Natasha Palinchak, reporting for BBC Documentary, from about half a mile inside the much rumored Zone of Alienation. Radiation, cloudy skies, and broody Ukrainians; vodka, gas masks and Kalashnikovs. It's a dangerous mix, for dangerous men…"

—

The first hour was accompanied both by Natasha's running reel of scenery and wordspinning as well as the crackling squawk of the southern checkpoint loudspeaker, accusing stalkers of every sin from petty theft to terrorism and jaywalking. Only twenty minutes had past, and Tiptoe's patience was already as worn as the skin of his trigger finger.

"Washer... this is worth 30,000 rubles a day, right?"

"You want to go diving in a Whirligig? Your anti-gravity grave, my friend."

"I signed up for stupid, Washer. Dumbassery got me in here. Dumbassery got me the best friend I ever ever had too, eh?"

"You're a leeching suck-up you little hookworm. Stupidity got all your tourist friends killed, almost got you melted by Deathmoss and chum for dogs."

Tiptoe shrugged casually, as if the five bros and one broette meant nothing. "Look who's talking. The way you yarn, sounds like you live here."

"I do. Not a day I don't wish I'd just up and go home. Difference is, I know why I don't. You think you do, nod your head when I call you a damn fool and add parasitic moron too."

"Heh. A thousand and one things better to do, and here we are, taking in the rays, eating expired tuna and diving into Satan's cheese graters for radioactive gold. I'm doing it because it's amazing. You ain't told me what you do it for."

"I have. You're just thicker than a pseudogiant's skull."

Tiptoe shrugged, rubbing the knob of buttstock into his itchy armpit. "I hear they wash their clothes in the Big Land. With detergent. Is that why she smells so bad?"

"That's why she doesn't smell of vodka."

They came to the bridge. Somehow, Washer knew to stop, just at the other side. A moment later, he realized Natasha had stopped talking. "Miss Palinchak?" he called out, slinging his AK around to the front, finger resting over the trigger guard.

"Oh my God," she whispered, covering her mouth and pointing with her other hand. "Is that…"

Washer followed her finger, and breathed a little sigh of relief. For a moment he thought it was a mutant she saw. No, it was just a body down in the clearing left of the bridge, downslope of the trailer. More accurately, chunks of one, scattered over a fifteen meter radius: skin, fingers, cloth scraps, entrails and pulp, the grass smeared red under a hazy, shifting corona of non-light.

"Grisha, Anatoly, on me," said Washer, slinging his AK over his shoulder and rummaging in his coat pockets. "Check the perimeter for gear and ammo. Use your bolts and drop if you feel a tug." He pulled out a yellow-painted dented metal box about the size of those new iPhone 6's, thick as four of them. A single large diode light was set in the top of the screen, and four dials beneath it. After a moment, she recognized it as an Echo Detector, a first generation 'anomaly probe'. She'd been issued her own, but in bright blue and with a manual in six languages, including Tagalog.

"Jake, on me," she whispered, shoving her hand into her satchel and swatting around for her detector. "Alright—" she looked straight at the camera. "This is an Anomaly. We don't know what type yet, but we're going in for a closer look."

Washer's detector emitted a single beep as he got within ten meters of the epicenter of the meat splat. He palmed a few bolts from his satchel, and chucked them in front at angles. The middle hit the anomaly where he expected it, froze for a blink of a second, and shot off over his shoulder, smashing into the dirt next to Mike's foot and eliciting an appropriate _"Jaysus Christ!"_

The second skipped off Anatoly's head and bounced into the bushes. The rookie turned around slowly, scowling, then went back to his work, scraping the grass for any loose ammo or junk the poor bloody sod might have been carrying.

The third, off his left, flew just as Natasha entered Washer's view, whizzed over her shoulder as she scrambled forward and froze mid-air in front of her face.

Natasha squealed as Washer tackled her to the ground as the bolt shot out right where her head had been, blowing past Jake's ear at three times the speed of sound. "Let me go— what the hell—"

"Stand back," he snarled, lifting her up and shoving her back towards the hillside. "Tolya, Grisha, any good shit?"

"Peashooter," said Tolya, holding up a muddy Makarov. "Snickers and batteries."

"Short radio, Soviet," said Grisha. "Wallet, ruble notes and a chick pic. Found his face." Grisha held up a flap of bloody skin, torn at the edges with holes at the nose, eyes and mouth.

Natasha retched and puked. Jake and Mike both turned away, holding their arms over their mouths.

"Alright. We're done here. Let the animals clean him up."

They moved to regroup back on the bridge, Washer half-dragging Natasha up the slope as she dry-heaved. He waited a couple moments for her to stand up, then smouldered at her for another minute.

"Damn tourist," he muttered, shaking his head. He grabbed the Echo Detector out of her hand, turned the dials she still didn't understand, and tested the switch, then shoved it back at her. "Replace the batteries and stay out of our way. Grisha, Pasha, take the right and watch for tracksuits. We're going to the car park, see what's good with Yurik and company."

—

As Washer and Tiptoe led the group down the sort-of-extant dirt path to the car park, Tiptoe felt a certain simmering from Washer, a familiar aura of bridled frustration.

"What's up Wash?"

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"Her choice, not mine."

"Her choice which is going to cost you 30,000 rubles a day if you don't curb it. Damn it man, were you always this thick?"

"She had her detector out. How am I supposed to know it didn't have batteries?"

"You're not, you're supposed to assume she's an idiot and stop her! If I didn't know you as a clueless prick, I'd think you _let_ your friends get chewed up by that anomaly field."

Tiptoe said nothing. Washer glanced over and shook his head, eyeing the foliage on the left, thirty meters out. "What is it, little man?"

"I still hear her sometimes. In the dreams. In the howls of the pseudodogs. Or in the shelter during an emission, wailing with all the other voices…"

"You were lucky to survive yourself. Such is the Zone."

"I know—"

"Then stop talking about it. Go and explain that fish-eyed look off her face. I can sense it drilling through my skull."

—

"What was—" she began.

"A gravitational anomaly," said Tiptoe, walking beside her. "Springboard. It attracts, then on contact, ejects."

"On contact with what? How does it work?"

"Who knows? Center of it, I guess. You can't really see it, only the distortion behind it."

"But— why? Why did that- man -how did he... die?"

"Such is the Zone." He gestured broadly at the car park for emphasis. "You scrape an anomaly, you die. If you're unlucky, you're just amputated, and the mutants finish you off."

"Mutants?" her eyes may as well have been those of a sockeye salmon they were so large.

"Animals and other... things. Lots of different types. Dogs, rats, crows, boars and worse. Long story short, they want to eat you, and they're not so scared of humans anymore." He punctuated that with a knowing chuckle, savoring her unsettled sounding breaths. "Don't worry. Nothing says 'scat' better than two barrels of buckshot." He grinned again, looking around and ahead, tapping the trigger of his shotgun.

"What about hard techno?" she asked as they walked through the long-since corroded gate, now half-buried in the gravel beneath their feet.

"Eh, music doesn't seem to affect— huh?" Tiptoe stopped, staring at the mechanic shop where indeed was thumping a really catchy, terribly familiar beat.

"I hear really, really obnoxious Russian techno," said Natasha, catching up with Washer and shivering involuntarily. "The kind of crap gopniks listen to around their barrel fires."

 _"We're going to have to bleep that out. All of that,"_ Mike whispered.

Washer and his two rookies were already at the mechanic shop door when Tiptoe connected the techno and the lack of Yurik's wheezing harmonica. "Bandit—"

—

Washer opened the door and said, "Yurik, how's it go—" when he realized all the men around the campfire were in imitation Adidas tracksuits, staring at him with cards and ruble notes in their hands while Russian techno blasted through their ears.

A heartbeat later, the air was filled with the sound of racking bolts and clicking safeties, more than a dozen guns in the air between the two groups. Natasha blinked, staring down the barrel of a double barrel shotgun not more than three meters from her face.

In the back of the group, someone clicked off the stereo.

"How ya doin'?" said Washer, keeping his AK trained on the middle one, a shortish guy with a gold-plated Makarov and a dirty mouth speckled with gold teeth, like wild corn. "Just thought we'd say hi."

"Just knocking down cards to some sick beats," the bandit returned, licking his lips. "So, how you boys kicking?"

"Just out for a stroll. Taking in the sights. Seen any friends of ours, friend?"

"Maybe. What's it to you?"

"A five round burst through your face. Where are they?"

"Still kicking somewhere. We fleeced'em. Fired some shots. We patched up their leaks, no worries. Say, that mug's familiar; I know you, friend?"

"Maybe. What's it to you?"

"A cap in your ass and my dick in the broad if I don't get an answer."

"Washer. Of Rashkomov's boys."

The bandit squinted for a moment— then all of a sudden lowered his gun and extended his left hand palm up, smiling brightly. "I remember you. Goddamn, has it been a long time."

Washer took his rifle in his left hand and shook the bandit's hand firmly, returning a thin grimace. "Not long enough, Leech. You telling me the truth?"

"Come on man, you know I never liked killing much." Leech shrugged for emphasis, taking a step back. "Yurik and the lads will be fine. Maybe a little bruised, a little indignified, but they'll come around to their new position. So what's your story now? What's with the broad?"

"It's a job, that's all. Tourist work."

"Tourist work, eh? How well she paying?"

Both sides still had their guns up. Washer didn't let his eyes move. "Well enough."

Leech turned his gaze on Natasha. She shuddered as their eyes locked, and she saw not a trace of humanity, just a milky haze with a slight darkening where his pupils should be. Those were not the eyes of a man who gave a damn for the wellbeing of his fellows.

"Well…" Leech turned back to Washer, sucking air through his teeth. "In that case, why don't we—"

"Here, Mister…" Natasha rummaged through her satchel, "— _Leech,_ so, soo sorry for interrupting your, uh, shindig—" and pulled out a fat bundle of 100 ruble notes and shoved them at him. "Please, take this for your trouble, and we'll be on our way."

Washer bit his tongue. Leech gently cupped her wrist with one hand and lifted out the stack of money, thumbing through it and smiling.

"It's 10,000 rubles," Natasha nearly shouted, biting her lip as Leech massaged her palm with his rough, leathery thumb.

"What a nice housewarmer." Leech grinned, and let go of her hand. "Well, it was good to see you again, Washer. May we meet again." He motioned for his men to lower their guns, which they did, hesitantly.

"Same," Washer growled, gesturing for everyone to exeunt hard right, and dragging Natasha while Grisha and Pasha shoved the film crew onward, keeping the group's rear covered with their shotguns until they were about a hundred meters out from the car park.

Natasha gasped as Washer shoved her onto the ground, his eyes nearly white. "What in God's name were you thinking woman?! I had it under control, now he _knows_ you have hard cash! He's probably already calling up all his mates, painting a big fat target on our backs in exchange for a cut of your satchel— how much fucking cash do you have in there?"

"I-I-I—"

"What, you think money can buy you your life? Maybe out in the Big Land, where they'd rather take pocket cash than tango with the cops. There are no cops in the Zone. No one's looking out for you but you, and us because we still have a shred of humanity left and your bosses are going to make us rich as oligarchs. God's truth, if you being intact weren't a strict necessity, Grisha and Tolya would've banged you while you were lurching around like an ape last night— and they've only been here a month. They don't know what it's _really_ like, to go years without seeing a woman— and a porn mag maybe once in a month."

Natasha gulped, too terrified to cry. Quirky as the stalkers were, she hadn't yet understood the hungry looks in their eyes. Or she had, but they'd seemed too normal otherwise to— oh God. What had she got herself into now?

"Get up." He grabbed her upper arm and yanked her to her feet, pushing her off towards her film crew, standing petrified between Grisha and Pasha. "Cut that out or leave it in, doesn't matter to me. We're going to the railroad embankment. Tiptoe, watch the rear. Miss Palinchak, until we're past the railroad, it would be _fantastic_ if you could keep your commentary to a minimum."

—

Washer led in front with his detector out and the sound off, trusting the blinking light to navigate them around the practically invisible anomalies, disguised by the dim daylight and the dark, dense foliage. Vulnerable as it was, hitting an anomaly would be worse, so they were progressing in a rough, staggered column, chucking bolts whenever Washer stopped until the safe path was found. The air hummed with static motion, an unnatural vibration that made Natasha's ears ring and her skin itch; at every step she felt her body hairs being tugged in every which direction, her skin stretching slightly with it.

"I'm sorry," Natasha muttered as she fell in back with Tiptoe, staring at the ground.

"He cares," said Tiptoe, occasionally glancing behind to make sure he was still with the group, while keeping his front faced east towards the car park. "And hey, at least he cares about your money, and's smart enough to know keeping you alive reaps the bigger harvest."

"But what if I fall out of contact with my bosses? What if I go missing, they declare me dead and that money dries right up?"

Tiptoe shrugged. "Well, assuming you don't trip over an anomaly or get lost without a gun and antirad, the worst that'll happen is a lifetime of sexual slavery."

Natasha sighed and palmed her forehead, biting her cheeks. "That's just great. Fantastic. Nothing to worry about."

"You're too valuable to just kill. There's not a lot of ways to escape in the Zone. Video games take too much power, distract you too much. Cards only do so much when you're playing for the same sandy tobacco and moldy meat. No one in their right mind bets Artifacts— except in the Casino, and I think that's a load of bull. Books are heavy, take up space for useful shit, like bullets and morphine. Sports? Who's got the energy to play football after running six miles while being chased by dogs? Some play chess, but it's too much thinking for me. Porn mags are like gold, but the imagination's only so good. You're the first woman I've met in nearly three months, after my… after Vika… Alright, it's been awhile, okay? You happy?"

Natasha didn't need to look at him to hear that familiar note of loneliness and loss. She put out her hand and touched his shoulder, squeezing it lightly. "I'm sorry."

"Not your pissing fault." He smiled, and squeezed her wrist, lifting it off his shoulder and returning it to her side. "When we've some time, maybe I can school you in some shooting. If you can shoot straight and carry a gun, Washer might not give you such a barrowful of salt with every screwup."

"We're out of the woods," Washer called out. "Masks on, we're near the cement factory."

"Masks?" asked Natasha.

"Not everything in the Zone kills you quickly," said Tiptoe, slinging his shotgun and pulling his PB-01 mask down over his face. "Rads and toxins aren't so good for the lungs."

Natasha nodded quickly and strapped her mask on, forcing herself to breathe deeply and slowly. Even so, the polycarbonate visor started fogging up, obscuring her lower field of vision. "Uh, any anti-fogging tips?"

"What?" Tiptoe shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. "Can't hear!"

"It's too foggy! I can't see!" she shouted back.

"Quit talking, it'll warm up eventually."

They were in front of the factory gates now, rusted to pieces and impeding the movement of only ants. All eight of them were in gas masks, only Natasha and her film crew struggling to breathe in them.

—

Grisha sidled up to Washer, tapping him on the shoulder while holding his shotgun in a death grip. "Boss, what's the plan?"

"We'll do a sweep of the factory. Make sure you've got plenty of bolts. Give the garage a scan, but don't look too hard; not a lot of hiding places, too much radiation. But the workshed might still have random useful crap."

"But what for? We got plenty of ammo, matches and sundry crap in our rucks."

"I'm trying to teach you something you nutskull. Check the garage out with Tolya, and try to figure out if you can use any of the crap in there for something. Go." Grisha tapped Tolya on the shoulder and motioned him forward across the open yard, and both moved as a pair, holding pistols in one hand and bolts in the other.

"Pasha! Climb up the catwalk stairs, get to the roof and check out that little alcove. Sometimes sneaky devils hide their swag there. Stay up there with your Mosin and keep an eye out till I say."

As Pasha set off for the catwalk, Washer turned and waved Tiptoe forward. Natasha took that to mean her as well, and followed behind, her film crew dawdling behind, Jake sweeping the buildings. _"This is a cement factory— we don't know the age of it yet, but it was probably here when the Sarcophagus was built, to mix the materials for the dome— which explains why so much of it looks adhoc, rebar and tin walls without any plaster or fittings—"_

Washer glanced at Natasha narrating muffledly to the camera and shook his head, turning back to Tiptoe. "Follow me up; I'll check our east and the railroad embankment, then we'll see—"

 _"T'fu BLYAAAAT!"_ Grisha shouted from inside the garage, accompanied by clanging metal and more muffled swears.

"Go upstairs and don't be stupid." Washer jogged to the garage with his handgun and detector out, stepping inside to the sound of a loud "$&#!*#$ &**#$^ &#$#-ING RATS!"

Natasha blinked. "Uh, alright then. I guess we'll censor that. Eventually. Hey, Tiptoe— where are you going?"

"Upstairs. Not much room," said Tiptoe, clambering up the metal stairs.

Natasha paused for a moment. "Jake, Mike, go in through the ground floor. You have any bolts?"

"Picked up a couple on the way," said Mike.

"Alright. Do it like they do it. Don't get... discombobulated, I guess. I'm going up top. Film some crap on the inside; I'll shout if I need you."

With that, Natasha scrambled up after Tiptoe, her mask fogging up nearly instantly. She stumbled in through the door at the top, took three steps, and felt a hard yank right before she fell right on her ass.

"Ow! What— why'd you do that?!" Gingerly, she stood back up, rubbing her butt and letting her mask clear.

Tiptoe clapped a hand on her shoulder and pointed down into what looked like a cement mixing funnel, just wide enough at the mouth to fit a human. "Anomaly. Gorgon's Bath. You slipped in there, you'd be dead."

She squinted, trying to see what he was pointing at. "I... don't see anything."

"But your detector does. You hear it?"

She held her breath for a moment, and heard the frantic beeping of her detector, muffled by her satchel. A bit sheepish, she reached into her bag and pulled out the detector: and saw the diode was actually two; a blinking green light for the anomaly, and a steady red for... something.

"Umm, it's red. What's that mean?"

Tiptoe grinned beneath his mask and clapped her on the shoulder. "It means, one, I'm going to eat well tonight. Two, your viewers are going to see some real cool shit."

"Jake! Get the camera!"

"We can see you from down here!" Jake yelled back, training the camera on Tiptoe and Natasha. "What is it?"

"Some, anomaly- anomaly called Gorgon's Bath, and an artifact inside!"

Natasha turned back, and Tiptoe was clambering up on the railing, his weapon and vest piled on the catwalk. For a moment, she thought this was possibly the worst idea she'd seen in action. In the next moment, she _knew_ this was a bad idea.

"Tiptoe!"

" **I'm okay!"** he shouted, his feet hooked around the edge of the funnel. **"I can see it! It— it's beautiful! I've almost—"**

The sound she heard next was something like ripping bark and sizzling fat with a broken glass falsetto, an awful sound and the sight of billowing smoke. The next time she had a coherent thought, Tiptoe was writhing on the catwalk, his jacket arms fusing to his skin, his hands charring and glowing as they clutched around a contorted glowing glass balloon, his mask pluming smoke and amplifying his screams as she dragged him to the catwalk, hollering herself as her mask fogged up again.

She ripped her mask off, grabbed his jacket sleeves and ripped them off, chucking them to the side as they began to liquify in her hands. She thrust her hand in her satchel and pulled out a half liter of vodka and emptied it over his forearms, hoping for the best— she saw his fingers turning to ash, saw bone, clutched around the artifact, and tore it out of his grasp— then screamed so hard she coughed up blood as her hands began to burn and fuse to its shell. She threw it behind her as hard as she could, taking patches of her palm skin with it, and forced herself to keep working, grabbing at Tiptoe's jacket and tearing away the layers, the cloth peeling away with the liquefying flesh stretching and breaking off from his body with a rubbery snap.

"Oh, oh God— what the..." Natasha turned to scream for a proper medkit and found Jake and Mike on the stairs, filming her.

" **GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!"**

"V-V-Vik-ka…" Tiptoe stammered, reaching out for her face, his eyes open wide, the flesh around the orbs peeling away, ashen and crumbly. "H-help me..."

She patted down his legs, ripped open pockets until she found an injector, hoped it was morphine, and slammed it down where she thought the heart was, emptying the syringe and tossing it aside. As his shivering slowed down and his screams subsided into low, rumbling moans, she continued to empty the vodka over the burns until the bottle ran dry and the burns slowly stopped smoking, leaving only the massive muscular bleeding that was soaking his chest.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and trembled, staring at Tiptoe's half-skeletal face, the skin seared and jaw muscles quivering, glistening in the dim daylight. She heard no intelligible word from him, only chokes and burbled nonsense words as he shivered, bleeding.

"Go. Tolya will take care of you."

"I caused this," she whispered, her gut a yawning pit. "I should've stayed out of the way."

Washer shook his head, and cocked his rifle. "Such is the Zone." He took aim at Tiptoe's head, and squeezed the trigger.

—

"What are you doing!?" Natasha screamed as she grabbed the rifle and wrenched it upwards, sending the round skating through the thin grate floor. "He's still alive!"

"Natalya, look at him! **He has no skin."**

"He's breathing! He's still alive!"

"He's going to die. There's no way he'll survive out here. If we were in a city, where there are hospitals, yes, he might make it. But he's lying on a factory catwalk at least forty kilometers from the nearest medical center, with nothing but cheap vodka and rusty needles for a surgeon's tools!"

"You can't just kill a man," Natasha cried, hugging Washer as he tried to wrestle his rifle out of her grip. "Not like this. He deserves to live!"

 _'No he doesn't,'_ thought Washer. _'Not by the Zone's rules. Life is earned, not given.'_

He looked back behind him, at the camera man, Jake, filming every second of the drama. He shook his head. Who cared if the public watched while he killed a man? They wouldn't know his face, and after the programme, wouldn't care to.

He looked at Tiptoe, and cursed himself.

Pasha, come down here and help me carry Tiptoe. Grisha, find that artifact, put it in the lead box. Don't touch it with your hands, use the tongs. Natalya, go to Tolya. Your hands are burned and you've been sucking in rads with that mask off."

Natasha nodded, barely able to see anyway, and shuffled down the stairs, allowing herself to be led out to a clear patch by Tolya, and her hands cleaned off and bandaged, and an anti-rad needle injected into her arm. "Don't eat anything for four hours, it'll just come right back out."

She looked at Tiptoe coming down the stairs, felt her stomach all up in knots. "I don't think I'll have a problem with that."

Tolya nodded and left to help Grisha track down the fallen artifact. Natasha wiped her eyes and replaced her mask, listening to her own breathing as the sun briefly broke the clouds to shine on them. A couple minutes later, Pasha and Tolya had Tiptoe slung between their shoulders, Grisha taking the rear with the camera crew and Natasha up at the front with Washer.

—

The railroad embankment was another hour's walk. Natasha tried to make some brief commentary on the strange, twisted rails above them, and broke down crying in front of the camera. The stalkers did not stand around her, but filled their bags with metal scrap from the collapsed train cars and their cargo, took off their masks and briefly ate and drank a shot of vodka. Then, ten minutes later, they got up again, just as wordlessly, and they walked on, bearing their comrade without complaint.

An hour and a half passed, occasionally marked with beeps of the anomaly detector and bouts of bolt throwing to find a path, and backtracking when one trail led them into a nest of contorted gravity. Natasha had hardly spoken nor noticed the time when they suddenly stopped in front of a small cottage with only half its walls and one room, the outer portion being a ripped up wood deck with a small gas drum fireplace set by thoughtful first stalkers.

"Tolya, Grisha, find some branches to burn. You got a hatchet?"

Grisha nodded.

"Get some wood too. Don't cut us down any Death Moss or we'll all be dead of fumes morning come."

"Got it boss."

"And don't go far. If you can't find any wood, we'll just deal with the cold. Try not to bring back any dogs."

Grisha and Tolya set off with shotguns and hatchets, while Pasha and Natasha carried Tiptoe into the back room and set him on the floor, covering him over with a tarpaulin from the cement factory.

"Pasha, you should rest," said Natasha, averting her gaze from the reedy looking stalker.

"Not my call—

"Drop and snooze," Washer interrupted. "Don't worry, I'll keep you up later. Miss Palinchak, keep me company, would'ya?"

She glanced at Pasha, who had already slumped against the wall, head cradled in his knees. Tiptoe had nothing to say, only mutters in his fevered sleep. She sighed, and walked out, standing beside Washer as he squatted on the ground, rifle across his feet.

They said nothing for a while. Just watched the scene before them. Almost idyllic, in a grey skies and exhausting trauma sort of way. The trees were healthy and green in spite of the Zone's terrors, the grass thick and full, and the occasional squirrel and smaller animals flitting about. Birds circled overhead, some crows, colorful songbirds too.

"I'm sorry," Natasha pre-empted, looking away, her throat dry and tense.

Washer sighed and patted her rear. "Look, sit down, would'ya? I feel like I'm talking to your vagina right now, and I want to talk to your face."

Natasha blushed and sat down on the splintered floor, legs held together extra tightly.

"You did alright," he began, wrinkling his mouth as he realized he hadn't thought of anything to follow that with.

"Alright?" Natasha gulped and looked away again, breathing deeply as her eyes threatened to water up again. "I almost got a man killed— hell, he's probably just a dead man walking anyway, like you said. If I hadn't been tag teaming him like that, he'd—

"Be a pile of liquid bone going up in smoke and we'd be short an artifact too. Because you were on his ass, he might actually live. The Flea Market in Rostok is the place to find every sort of weird shit imaginable. Guns, gear, artifacts— they're more than just glowy radioactive trinkets, you know. I know there's one that can fix him up, I've seen it before. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I know who's got it."

Natasha stared at him. Washer shrugged. He'd gotten used to her blank stares by this point. "Look, you're still a green as hell crotch wad. But you're smarter than the average knuckledragger that comes through the Cordon. You knew to use alcohol for the chemical burns from that anomaly. You got him out of his jacket before it melted him. You injected him with the coagulant to slow the bleeding in his muscles— even if you did have to pat him down for it."

Natasha gulped. "I thought that was morphine."

Washer palmed his forehead. "First thing to learn: when to shut up. Someone says something nice about you, just take it. It's the Zone, take your happiness where you can find it, and don't spoil nobody else's mood if you can help it (unless they're wearing tracksuits.)"

Natasha smiled and leaned against his shoulder. "Thank you, Washer."

The stalker nodded, and gently rested his arm across her shoulders. "Er... okay. I guess."

When he looked over at her, she was asleep, her face a thing of beauty the likes of which he'd been long deprived. He found himself content to watch her, occasionally glancing up to check his surroundings.

 _This is great footage. Great footage._

 _But— we're filming a documentary._

 _Romantic sideplot. Look at the production value!_

 _Shut up and keep filming._

An hour later, Grisha and Tolya returned with firewood, saw Natasha sleeping against Washer's shoulder, and couldn't help but mouth off.

"Aww, aren't you just the cutest ladykiller?" cooed Grisha.

"I'll hang your intestines on a tree for Christmas lights," Washer snapped, pulling his combat knife out for emphasis. "Feed your dick to a pseudodog and call it Betty White."

Tolya snickered, and the two fed and started the fire and started warming some tushonka cans over it while Grisha drummed his fingers on the lid of the artifact container.

"So what'd we get?" said Washer, his voice low.

"Big old green glowing thing. Maybe a Bubble?"

"Too rare, too rare. Must be something else."

"Why don't we pop open the box and take a look?"

"Already burned two sets of hands today. No need to get cataracts today."

"Suit yourself." After their spartan dinner, Grisha dropped inside to take a nap, and Tolya sat out with Washer for the next couple hours. Around 9pm, 3 hours later, they changed watches, swapping out Tolya for Pasha. Seeing Washer asleep there with Natasha, the two sleeping upright against each other, they left them alone, and the other stalkers divided the watches among themselves, ignoring the camera crew who had fallen asleep by the corner room door.

—

(Potential dream / memory scene)

—

It was Grisha's three hours on watch, somewhere between the ass crack and buttcheek of the morning when he shuddered back into wakefulness, his ears ringing with silence. He looked left, and realized the fire was out; there was nothing before him but inky blackness under a new moon, with scant but stars to cast shadows through the tree canopy.

He spent several seconds digging through his bag, eventually pulling out a hardy steel-cased maglite. His thumb moved to the on switch, when his nerves froze and instinct told him to wait. His ears thrummed with the sheer silence of the night; not even the trees swayed, not a single noise.

Then he heard it. The soft pad of a predator through the grass— and several more, slow and patient, the steps of a beast who knows the prey is all but in its jaws. A beast that not only fears no man, but prefers him as prey.

Grisha had never seen a pseudodog. He'd heard them on the wind, their human word howls, calling death and savagery in a wolf's savage trill. He'd seen their teeth on necklaces sold at Sidorovich's bunker, more steel than bone. And he knew the stories, of their horrible human faces filled with angler-fish teeth long enough to pierce your arm through and through.

He didn't dare move. If he twitched, they would kill him. If he shouted, they would kill him. If he waited another minute more, his pounding heart would kill him too, beat itself right out of his chest. If he didn't act, then everyone would die.

He flicked on the light.

The beam fell upon a near skeletal head, more draped with skin than covered over with flesh- a very much dog-shaped skull, with a pair of milky white eyes that did not move as the beam fell on its face. A blind dog. Just a normal dog, more or less.

"Dogs—!"

Washer sat upright and lifted his gun with one motion, firing at movement before he even saw it, his body moving purely on instinct. Tolya and Pasha jerked awake and scrambled out with their guns and lights and fired into the darkness, the night a cacophany of howling and gunfire.

Natasha awoke dazed and deafened, vaguely heard a question and began to mouth an answer when something sharp bit into her ankle and dragged her through the grass. She kicked at it, blind and weak, flailing like a stunned infant as the night lit up with flashes and she screamed and screamed, unable to hear herself or see her attacker—

When it suddenly simply dropped her, leaving her half in a bush, the black night spinning before her eyes and shooting pain through her leg, her calf wet with blood. She cried out, yelled and yelled until her hearing returned and something else grabbed her around the shoulders and heaved her onto her feet.

"You okay?" someone shouted in her ear.

"Yes! Ow, ow, my foot, oh God, what, what's going on—"

"Dogs. Where did it bite you? Can you walk?"

"Foot. I think so."

"Then let's go." Natasha hobbled onward as Washer dragged her behind, forging back to the cottage.

 _"Hey Pasha! Since when do dogs run away from a fight they're winning?"_

 _"Shut up Tolya! And reload your damn weapon!"_

 _"Where's Grisha? Grisha? You alive?"_

 _"Yeah— blind mongrel bit my left nut. Kurwa pizdeca."_

"Stalkers! Where's the film crew?"

"Pissing themselves in the corner with Tiptoe," Grisha muttered. "My left nut..."

"Oh shut up, he bit you on the thigh, not the balls. No one takes that like a man. Now bandage yourself up, reload and let's—"

Wash stopped suddenly, looking straight over the half-roof of the house. Natasha opened her mouth to ask, followed his gaze, and froze.

"Boss? You were saying? Boss? Boss…"

Grisha stared at Washer and Natasha as the two of them and everything around them became suffused with a red glow, like falling embers laid over the world like a carpet. Hesitantly, he stepped outside and looked up.

"Oh God. I hope there's a heaven."

Natasha swallowed. "I guess we run."

As the claxons roared distantly at the village, and the air filled with a thundering drone like a million charging horses, Washer nodded, squeezing her hand tightly. "Yeah. We run."

Washer dragged her off through the foliage, gun in one hand and her wrist in the other. He yelled for the others to follow and didn't look back for them. They could hear bones creaking and muscles tearing, their lungs on fire as they pitched on through the crimson night, thunder splitting the sky like belching giants, lightning shearing the trees, black shadows curling above the cloud layer as a great tide of dust and debris six miles high roared out from the Zone's heart, Chernobyl, visible from every angle, a mass of radiation and death, the murderous breath of the living, breathing, merciless Zone. Long after their lungs had caught fire, their throats baked and cracked from the hail of dust and burning air, a mixture of fire and hellish brimstone, blood trailed from their lips and came up with their heaving breaths as the Zone's fiery breath burned at their clothes, lashed their backs with dust and lightning, whipped them on and on and on.

Washer threw her inside the door of the building and crashed to the floor, deaf and bleeding and burning. Natasha wheeled around and lurched to the door, saw Grisha running through the maelstrom, shouted for him to hurry— felt herself grabbed and hurled to the ground, the door slammed shut as the fury of the Zone swept through the Cordon, bathing it in radiation and psychic energy, killing every thinking being not hidden behind concrete or iron or sixteen feet of cold dirt.

She trembled where she lay, passing in and out of consciousness so fluidly that she could not distinguish her sleep from wakefulness, alternating between dreaming of Tiptoe's inhuman screams of agony and hearing the screams of a million damned souls carried on a radioactive hellstorm.

Washer simply sat with his back to the door, licked the copper-tasting blood off his lips, and made sure he had a fresh magazine in his Kalashnikov. Then, with nothing else to do, he rested his head against the cellar stairs and took a nap for the night.

—


	2. Chapter 2: Day Two

Exposure, Chapter 2

When Natasha opened her eyes, her very first thought was amazement at how badly her entire body could hurt and yet she felt no urge to scream. Her second thought was the realization that it wasn't that she didn't want to scream- in fact she was screaming as loud as she could- but her throat was so dry that the only noise which came up was the stale whistle of oven-baked lungs.

Every pore of her skin stung like a swelling bug bite, but she could hardly feel the texture of the dirt floor she was lying on. Her face was crusted over with a mixture of dust and old blood- her eyes and ears were caked with it, her nostrils and mouth too.

It was a lonely three minutes before she finally approached the idea that she was alone in this dark space, whatever it was. It was not entirely her fault; her head buzzed every time a thought more complicated than ow crossed a neuron.

She sat up first of all, cradling her head between her knees, her thoughts slamming into the brick wall of whole-body pain as she tried to recollect her memories of last night. Assuming it wasn't still night. Groaning, she threw herself to her feet, swinging and yelling as she careened around the room, until she slammed her face into a wall and her hand brushed something that felt very much like a door handle.

She felt a sudden rush of excitement, wordless but jubilant, as the idea of a door handle began to proliferate amongst the angry red flares of throbbing pain. She didn't stop to panic, not knowing where it is, or if it was locked; it was good enough that there was one. She clung to the thought of an exit as she smeared herself across the wall, banging her hips and elbows into bits of furniture and pricking her palms full of splinters until suddenly her fingers found the handle. Then she wrenched it open, stumbling up the steps she couldn't see, now blinded not by darkness but by the light of the steely gray morning.

The air was good though. It was open, it was moving, smelling woodsy and sour, but living. As she crawled up out of the cellar, she saw a collecting pond, mud, a dripping tap, and crawled towards it, consumed with nothing but her overwhelming thirst.

No thoughts of radioactivity, parasites, bacteria, toxins, industrial waste or anomalies. She crawled straight into the pond and laid there with just her nose above the surface, her eyes rolled back in her head as its cool murk soaked into her clothes and her burning skin. She drank deeply, and didn't stop until she felt so bloated over that it was coming out her nose. Only then did she climb back out of the water, resting at its side, her thoughts slowly recollecting.

As she looked into the water, she realized something was deeply amiss with her face. Not damage- she expected to see burns and scars from last night's hell. All she had to say for her nightmare were a few cuts from sharp branches. She examined her arms in the light, and found no serious wounds; not burns nor gashes, not a mark to be found. Hopeful, she tried to stand up— and her left ankle gave way immediately.

Now she screamed, hugging her leg close to her chest as she twisted on the ground, tears streaming out of her eyes. Her examination of her ankle was less than methodical, hasty and agonied. She saw strips of flesh torn out, the whole area stained red with clots and scabs, thought she saw bone, loose tendons.

Before she even thought to call an ambulance, or scream for help, a part of her interrupted and said, "Help yourself." A part of herself she hadn't heard since she was thirteen in Donetsk.

She wiped away her tears and took a deep breath, examining her ankle more carefully. It was a mess, but less visible tearing than she thought. The wound would have to be sterilized, likely with vodka. Anesthetics would be helpful, but unlikely forthcoming. Given that she could still move her foot, albeit painfully, she did not have a broken ankle.

Sitting up, she took in her surroundings: the cellar to her left, beneath a single story farm house; to her right, a long, low shed that might have been a stable. Beyond them, trees and bushes dotting grassy fields filled with herbs and flowering plants waist high and taller. In front, she could see a winding dirt path obscured with more bushes and grass. But no people.

For which she was thankful, surprisingly. She didn't think much on it, but crawled back into the cellar. Five minutes of limping around the room and running her hands through drawers and boxes she still couldn't see found her with wire, oil rags, and a positively ancient bottle of vodka.

She laid her ankle on a bed of cloth over the dirt, and sparingly rinsed it with the vodka, daubing with another rag and chewing a third to muffle her screams. Cleaned of old blood, she soaked a fourth rag through and clamped it over the wound. She worked the wire at the rag until she forced it through, then twisted the wire until it kept the vodka-soaked rag flat over her ankle. It burned, but not so badly as her skin. She replaced her sock over the impromptu bandage, gingerly put her boot back on, and tested her stance.

It hurt. A lot. But she could walk on it. She would have to.

There were still a few decaliters left in the bottle, so she emptied it, coughing and crying, baring her teeth and grimacing at the steel gray sky.

Yet that still left her with only her worn clothes and a hammer, rags and an empty bottle. No compass, no skills, only a whole body ache and the heavy air, pressing down on her like a blanket of ash. No one around her, neither human nor animal, though she wasn't sure she wanted either.

Washer. He had been there. Dragged her to this place. Thrown her into the door. Saved her life. Several times. Comforting, strong and brave. And yet she had not noticed his absence until now, nearly an hour on.

No— she had. She knew he wasn't there. But she had held herself to the idea that he wasn't really gone, hadn't really left her. He would only be a stone's throw away, just around the corner or over the hill and behind the tree, and all she had to do was idle away until he came back for her. Only now had it occurred to her that she had no hero. There was only her.

Metaphorically. Literally, a man was standing only twenty feet away, ape-armed, slack-jawed and lazy-eyed, staring at her through milky eyes, his skin a dusty gray.

"Grigori?" Contemplation fled, and fear hurriedly took its place. As Grisha lurched forward, Natasha stepped back, froze as her ankle locked up in pain, and collapsed back onto all fours. He staggered up to the edge of the pond, then swayed there in place, eyes intent on the dubiously potable water.

She should run. She knew this. But to where, she did not know. And Grisha the stalker, whatever may have befallen him, was a surer risk than the anomalous woods. Natasha swallowed down her dry throat and crept forward, watching Grisha's face. At the opposite edge of the pond, she could see his eyes twitching, flicking from point to point from second to second, each moving independently. He glanced at her for a moment, groaned, and turned back to the pond.

Gingerly, she swung her legs over the pond, and let them hang in it, the water just below her knees and feet still not touching the bottom. Grisha's eyes hovered on her legs for several seconds- then he grunted and shuffled forward into the water, where he promptly sank up to his waist. Natasha snorted, a sudden smile she didn't expect. Grisha's eyes, already cavernously open, looked as if they were about to shoot from his sockets like bottle rockets. He stared at her face with his head tilted back and his jaw hanging loose, like she was Scarlett Johannsen and she'd just flashed her rack like a pair of highbeam headlights. She kept smiling, at once anxious and desperately clinging to the brief moment of blessed assurance that humanity still remained.

"Y, y, ya znaal tebya," he moaned, wading towards her, dragging his arms through the water.

It took her a moment to put his slurred Russian back together. "Yes," she said slowly, gently grabbing his wrists as his arms broke the surface. "I'm Natasha. The anchor."

Grisha staggered forward and stopped with only a foot between their noses. Perhaps he tripped on some tree root at the bottom of the pond. Now only inches away from him, she realized she could not smell vodka on his breath, as it reeked so heavily from every stalker.

"Yyya znal tebya," Grisha repeated, raising his hands to her face, his thumbs resting on her temples, fingers lining the rear of her jaw. She tried to tug his hands away and met arms that may as well have been cold forged steel. He pulled her closer, noses all but touching as she struggled as vainly as a worm in the beak of a crow, his slurred and fragmented droning filling her ears. "Yyya ne znayu tebya, no ya ne, ne znayu menya..." Not even inches away, she saw that his eyebrows were no longer hairs but charred smears of carbon painted above his sunken eyes, covered with blistered and blackened eyelids, and his skin was not merely pale but translucent, showing no blood at all in the muscles underlying his face. She could see her reflection in his pupils, and saw her gaping mask of terror there before she felt his fingers tighten over her skull, compressing bone with an inhuman strength.

"Kto menyaa? Kto tebya? Kto nas? Kto nass?"

It did not fade to black. Fully conscious, oxygenated and awake, she was terribly aware as she kicked, pulled, flailed and writhed in his immovable grasp as he slowly crushed her skull, staring into her own reflection as his questions reverberated in her head— _Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? Who are we?_

There was no hate on his face, only a childlike, wondrous, homicidal curiosity. This was Grisha, but not him; merely a stranger before, now an alien. Caught in the vise, trapped by her naivete, she prepared herself to accept death— and met herself in Donetsk. Orphaned and alone. Only a child's wits and a girl's strength when all that was human had been sold for bread.

"We are human," she croaked, feeling something warm and thick squirt from the corner of her left eye and something else crack in the right side of her jaw. "We are alive."

She felt the pressue suddenly slacken, though Grisha still held her off the ground. He stared at her as empty eyed as before, but she thought she saw his jaw close slightly, as if suddenly he had discovered enlightenment.

"Myi zhivoi..."

Then a crack split the air and his face exploded over her, splattering her with a hail of bone fragments and liquefied brain matter. A moment later, his arms dropped and she fell to the ground, the sky spinning in front of her eyes as she curled up on the ground, clutching her throbbing head.

Someone grabbed her shoulder and rolled her on her back, shouting her name and shaking her. Her vision trembled, shifting between dark and light as blood rushed back into her head; she nodded vaguely whenever it sounded like a question, her muscles weak and compliant.

Eventually the noise resolved into individual words, then a sentence, and then the man stopped talking and simply lifted her by the collar and pushed her towards the farmhouse. "Go inside. I'll take care of it."

She stumbled to a stop, turning and squinting at him. "It?" she asked, still not fully certain she knew the stalker.

He nodded towards Grisha's headless body, sprawled over the edge of the pool. "See if there's anything inside, we must move soon."

"Who…"

"Goddammit woman, are you dense? Your bag is gone, your crew is dead, and there's bandits at the embankment. I need a survivor, not a ditzy reporter who makes her living on asking pointless questions."

Yep. This was Washer.

She didn't nod, but sprang into motion (though it was more like a dazed lurch), her confusion silenced by her instincts and Washer's authoritative insults. The front door was unlocked, and she quickly moved through the first floor, pulling open drawers and picking up anything that looked sharp or metallic, or edible.

Which came to a sum of one rusty kitchen knife and a tushonka from 1972 when she was standing again in the main hall before the stairs to the second story, which were caved in at the 7th step into the locked understairs closet.

—

Washer worked efficiently over Grisha's body, checking his backpack and stripping off his useful gear. He had only been in the Zone for six weeks, hadn't acquired much of use nor value. A thousand rubles of cash, some soviet maps, a couple D batteries, a half-eaten sausage, and his PMM with two loaded magazines. Shotgun missing, no detector, nothing remotely helpful, besides his expired Ukrainian passport and a swiss army knife.

It didn't matter he and Grisha weren't particularly close. He was the boss, and Grisha followed his orders. They bantered around the campfire, but kept their cards close to the chest, split their profits and occasionally bought each other vodka. He was just another stalker.

And all the same this was brutal work. Grisha might not have been a close friend, but he was still a man. To die in such abject indignity, incapable of cognition, trapped in your own mind, released only by a bullet to the brain. There would not be a body in a casket, if ever there was a funeral for him. There was no one to write a letter home to; if there was, she would never get his letter. The only one to witness his passing would be Washer, as he stripped down his corpse for supplies and petty cash, like a vulture that happened to pity his meal. His body would eventually fill the belly of some hungry mutant, and he would become a part of the Zone forever— as if he hadn't already been its prisoner.

It wasn't theoretically difficult to leave the Zone, not any more difficult than sneaking in. Hell, if you were willing to eat the prison sentence, just walking up to a checkpoint with your hands up would get you a free ride back, courtesy of the Zone Containment Force. And yet, no one left.

He heard a scream from the farmhouse, and despite his best efforts, couldn't be bothered to run as he made his way to Natasha.

—

He found her covering her mouth while staring at a long-dead skeleton in moth-eaten clothes, sat in a chair with its skull propped up on the barrel of a rusted Mosin rifle. He ignored her gibberish and whimpering, and turned her towards him, pressing her forehead against his, nostrils flared.

"Miss Palinchak, we need to have a discussion."

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—"

"First, you are no longer a human being."

She reminded him of a fish as she blinked in confusion.

"You live in a world where you have no intrinsic value. You are only as valuable as you are useful to someone, and to many, you are useful as either a mark or a slave."

"But we can buy them... off..."

"I tried to locate your satchel from last night's campsite. It, along with that entire house, is no longer there. Our collective cash amounts to less than three thousand rubles. Before you call for a rescue chopper, even if you did have a cellphone, there are no signals in the Zone. Anomalies, psychic fields, whatever it is, they don't work. Even if they try to send a rescue team, they will likely never find you."

"But we can still go back to the village, go to the checkpoint— I still have my passport!"

"You forgot the bandits. Remember Leech? Your smooth move of paying him off? He's got backup. At least a dozen tracksuits on the embankment, and more moving north, looking for you."

"But I don't have any cash, I'm not... oh shit."

"He still thinks you have a motherlode. When he finds out you don't, you're fucked (literally), and I'm fucked metaphorically."

"But aren't you friends?"

"Friends in the same way as a wolf and a dog. Similar animals, very different behavior."

As Washer paused for a breath, Natasha realized exactly what he was going to say. What the purpose of all this banter, counter and questioning had been.

"I'm stuck here. Just like you. Just like Grisha."

"For the time being, yes."

"And unless I want to be sucking glow-in-the-dark dicks till the end of days, I'm going to have to be you. In a sense. But with a vagina."

Washer tried to keep a straight face.

"You know, you're being more reasonable than I expected for a tourist. And a woman."

Natasha glared at him. "I was born in Donetsk, Mister Laundryman. I grew up with unpaid Soviet parents. I don't think coming back to my home country counts as tourism."

Washer stepped back and scratched his head. "This does not add up. Pretty woman. Born in Donetsk. Poor childhood. Comes from Britain. Squeals at dead bodies. Tells me she is strong. Wears heeled boots. Something is missing."

"I've picked up some civilized habits."

"Stupid habits. Can you shoot?"

"I live in Britain. Can't own guns."

"You are not helping the case for 'why I should bother with this useless wreck of a human being who will probably die in the next twenty four hours.'"

"Well..." Natasha blushed at the idea as it crossed her mind, biting her lip as she tried to look Washer in the eye. "I, uhh, could... y'know..." She glanced down at his pants, and wondered how she had not completely lost her mind yet.

"Sounds good, but only if one: we're alive long enough to share a sleeping bag, and two: if you don't mind shriveled stalker dick. The radiation here is not good for the skin." He stepped back and headed out the door, shaking his head. "Meet me at the barn when you're not babbling. Try not to trip over yourself."

Natasha nodded, starting after him. She glanced at the skeleton and his rifle, and impulsively grabbed the rifle away. The skeleton crumpled inwards, the jacket pockets jangling as the bag of bones hit the floor.

She held the rifle close to her chest, more familiar than she had known. The smell of the rust, like fresh blood, filled her nostrils. The patterns of mottled orange oxide alternated with streaks of dark gunsteel, bound in a laminated wood stock, reeking still of immortal cosmoline, summoned her memories of happier and harsher days, when she had been expected to be more than herself, when merely being alive was a meritorious accomplishment.

Her father, a Red Army soldier like his father and his father's father before him, had a saying he liked to parade around with old friends and new, army and civilian. "Old rifles never die... they just rust away."

The cosmoline memories called her, and she could not help but follow.

—


	3. Intermission

Good Morning Chernobyl Chapter 2 and a Half

Office Oppression —

One Month Ago; London, the U.K. August, 2016

"Akh vremya ckatinoi... why can I not sleep?"

Natasha opened her eyes, wide awake in the silent dark of her flat. No alarm, no noise, no disturbance. Just her and her thoughts in a sleepless city.

She knew it was no use to try and go back to sleep. She'd learned that well. So she swung herself off her bed and trudged to the bathroom to wash her face of eye crust, and her illegal dreams with it.

It didn't seem to be doing much good. The cold water couldn't make her much more alert than she already was, and the soap could not wash away her contempt. This too, did not surprise her. After she had dried her face off, by habit she sat down at her journal, started in the vain hope that recording her dread thoughts might weaken their hold over her.

Maybe it was because she still recorded it in Russian, and her father's red spirit still cursed her never to lie in her mother's tongue.

She struggled to write; continuing in her vain hope, she sought inspiration in the past journals.

July's last journal, Monday the 29th:

 _Another office party, night club called Swanky's. What an unimaginative name. There was beer. Whisky. Wine. Cognac and brandy. No vodka._

 _Pussies._

 _Dave from Human Resources hit on me again, then vomited down my blouse._

 _Britantsi can't hold their liquor._

Three weeks ago, Tuesday the 7th:

 _Nothing exciting happened. Trump said something stupid again, Mark ordered us to cover it. Wrote something meaningless about Muslim-hate. If only they could see what Syria looks like now. Xaxaxa._

 _Went out with Dave. He has a chode._

 _Pointless._

Two weeks ago, Friday the Tryhard Day:

 _Sucked off Mark to get dibs on a story investigating the Pakistani neighborhoods, under the pretext that I wanted to report on the 'abhorrent negligence of the British government in their care and maintenance.'_

 _Bought an illegal pistol from Borya in Tottenham. Liked the weight. Wished I could shoot it. (Makarov, PMM, 50 rounds 9x18mm +P+. Shame there's no shooting ranges.)_

 _Got drunk at an office party. Finally._

 _Found out Alex is freaky. Don't think I'll record how. I'd like to forget._

Last week's journal, Wednesday of Fuck Me:

 _Went to…. I don't care. Why bother? Whether from fallout or from friends, I'll die, either of cancer or reruns. My addictions consume me._

She turned to a new page, and forced herself to put her pen to the paper.

Today, I Don't Know When

 _Life's a Macy's day parade, full of flash and bother_

 _Days of smiling charades, nights without mothers_

 _The facade goes on, death still marching home_

 _Must I await the dawn, or will it find my bones_

She paused. The Makarov was right there, right in front of her. It whispered, _"Fight it. Fight the darkness. It will kill you, but you can take its minions down with you. Two magazines, 16 possibilities. Put it in your purse and get in your car. Yes..."_

The faded red star on the handle did not speak though. It glared sullenly, expecting her to give voice to its heart and mind.

 _Motherland calls, and all she hears is my dial-up_

 _The New World offers me a deal I cannot deny;_

 _Money and comfort if I'll just sell my soul under mark-up_

 _Motherland sighs, and remembers days when men died_

 _For her sake and her sake alone, fearlessly and boldly_

 _When their hearts were slave to flags, and not to gold_

 _From Motherland I was raised, and To Motherland I shall Return_

There was Ukraine. There was the War. And there was the Zone.

And there, there was hope. Dirty, radioactive, 4chan r/stalker/ board hope, but hope nonetheless.

They'd been looking for volunteers for a documentary long enough. Why not supply them an anchor?

She would pack the Makarov. It'd take some finagling, but she'd bring it home.


	4. Chapter 3: Cardio

Good Morning Chernobyl Chapter 3

"Alright, pop quiz, Miss Palinchak. What's a safety, and what should you do with it?"

"It stops the bang. And you should keep it on until you're ready to shoot someone."

"Half credit. You should always be ready to shoot someone. Now, aim at the target I've set up at the end of the barn. You have eight shots to impress me."

"Plus one in the chamber?"

"No, fresh magazine."

She nodded and thumbed the safety off, then looked for the target. She saw only piles of hay, rusted tools, broken stalls, and the bones of farm animals long past. And Grisha's body, leaned up against the barn door, strapped to the bar-hold with some moldy rope.

"I don't understand. The door?"

"No. Our friend. Center of mass, less than 30 feet, unaware. Easiest shot you'll get."

"Unaware? He's bloody dead."

"What's the difference? Shoot him."

"No— no! He- have you no respect for the dead?!"

"Nor the living. Shoot him."

"Cut the shit. He's your _friend!-_ Look, just— I'm not totally incompetent. Just let me shoot at a shovel, or hit a horseshoe or something."

"-He's also dead. And you will be too, if you can't shoot a man-shaped target. Do I have to explain the psychology behind it?"

He saw the blank look on her face, and sighed heavily.

"So, in the old days of the Army, in the days when soldiers were just amoebous muck and not even dignified with being called frogfoots, they learned to shoot with bullseyes. Easy stuff, for volley fire. But as small-arms got more advanced, and aiming became actually important, military eggheads realized that soldiers which did perfect on bullseyes were actually terrible marksmen in combat, on the frontline or snipers. Can you guess why?"

"Stress of combat?"

"No, though that's not a bad guess. It is because they were trained to shoot at colored circles, not people. They could easily hit the center at 300 yards, 4 out of 5 rounds. But they could not bring themselves to willingly shoot a human being center of mass, a much easier target.

"So, if you could shoot Grisha in the chest a few times, I'd be much more confident in your chances of survival."

Natasha looked at the gun, then at Grisha, then at Washer, then back at the dead man.

"No."

Washer shook his head and walked away. "Well, I won't make you. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make her drink. I'm still not giving up on my payout, so thank your God that I'm a greedy bastard. We should probably get moving to stay—"

A gunshot rang out from Natasha, followed by a whimper from ringing ear drums and a thump as a body hit the ground. Washer turned and saw a dead tracksuit lying in the doorway of the barn, a spatter of bone and cranial matter on the door where his head had been.

Promptly, Natasha threw up. Not having anything in her gut but radioactive water, her vomit was mostly pond scum and frog eggs she'd accidentally swallowed.

For a brief moment, he was sickly amused by the irony of the situation. Immediately after, he heard guns being cocked, and a volley of Ukrainian profanity, shortly followed by—

He tackled Natasha into her vomit as the bandits outside lit the barn up with a hail of gunfire, 5.45mm rounds punching through the wood and sending wood shrapnel and lead fragments flying.

"Suka blyat, idi na khuy! Miss Palinchak, I would advise you to start crawling!"

 _"I am-I am you tit!"_ she yelled back in English.

 _"Hey, hold your fire, kurwa, stop shooting! Zdec turistka! Myi budem bogatymi! Obxodim patsany!"_

"Now is time to run!" Washer scrambled to his feet, dragging Natasha by her collar through the haze of wood dust; he shoved her through the door and spun around as another Bandit tripped over his friend running in, AK in hand. Both fired wildly, stumbling back into cover as they emptied their magazines at each other.

"Farmhouse, go!"

Another bandit rounded the corner with his shotgun out, raising it to fire as Natasha stumbled into him, and accidentally put her knee into his nuts. Normally, she would have bounced off a man that big, but the critical knee in the scrotum knocked him flat; her being on top, she was the first up and scrambling towards the farmhouse, clutching her Makarov like a magic charm and Mosin rifle on her back. The bandit cursed and lurched after her, firing two blasts into the house as she threw herself through the door.

 _"Dimwit, hold your goddamn fire, that's the tourist!"_

 _"My balls disagree, Yipchak!"_

 _"Shut up and go around the back, I got the front. Shashlik, how's it going in the barn?"_

 _"SHETSHETSHETSHET."_

 _"Pretty good then?"_

Washer ducked back out of the barn to reload and found himself in the sights of the bandit standing on the farmhouse porch, who was not in need of a reload.

"A nu, cheeki breeki iv dam—"

Gunshots and a panicked Ukrainian echoed from inside the farmhouse. The bandit swore and ran in, sparing Washer another few seconds to live. Washer, like a good stalker, took this time to find a bigger gun. Unfortunately for him, his Kalash was _not_ on his person, but leaning against the center beam of the barn, singing a siren song with its luxurious, alluring, sexy gun-ness.

"Ah, ya shyol na khuy."

—

At the worst possible time, Natasha dropped her handgun, and with the best timing, shot the man in the foot. As the bandit at the backdoor hopped around and cursed, she ran into the main hallway, readying her rifle — and nearly ran herself onto the bayonet of the other bandit. He grinned as she backed away, clutching the rifle to her chest, and racked his rifle for emphasis.

"Aww, so cute." he cooed, licking his lips. "You into cosplay?"

She leveled the rifle at him and tried to cycle the bolt, her face white and eyes wide. He laughed, and batted it aside, almost playfully. "You've got no bullets. I ain't scared, princess."

She glanced behind her, saw the toeless man approaching for a bearhug, and her doom not far behind. "Ah, _blyat."_

"Don't worry, we won't hurt you," he growled, grinning. "We promise!"

One grabbed her from behind, while the other grabbed the barrel of her rifle to yank it out of her hands; they closed in, the one behind her heaving her off her feet and squeezing his arms around her chest, trying to crush the air out of her as she held onto her rifle with a death grip. She didn't have time to be terrified, all she could do was absorb the fact that she was completely screwed right now.

Several pistol shots rang out from the front of the house. The one bearhugging her must have taken a round, because he suddenly stiffened and fell back with a volley of curses; as he fell, he dragged her with him, and suddenly the one in front of her had the muzzle of her gun pointed directly into his face.

Natasha didn't even mean to pull the trigger. She just instinctively squeezed it as she fell, and blew a gaping hole through his jaw, while the one she was lying on top of ate a firing bolt directly to the forehead as it shot out the back of the receiver. He immediately stopped swearing, a neat ciruclar dent in his forehead as he sprawled out on the floor.

She was still lying there, clutching the rifle like a life ring and panting when Washer grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

"You're welcome," was all he said, stripping the Kalash wielder of his weapon and free mags. "Take the shotgun, I think your rifle's done."

Natasha looked down at her rifle.

All that was left was the stock. Firing had sent the rifle into an existential crisis, solvable only by exploding into the face of whomever was directly in front of and behind it, as testified by the two bandits who had attempted to make a Natasha sandwich.

"I killed him..."

"No, you tripped. I shot him three times, you shot him once—"

"And blew off his face."

Washer shrugged. "Kill-steal. Hurry up, the one in the barn is not going to wait long."

 _Gun. How do I gun?_

 _Shotgun. Red things. Shells, grab those. How many? I don't know, I can't count, uh, zebra. That's how many. Should I take his water bottle? Yes. Vodka I think? Ohnoohnoohnoohno—_

"Miss Palinchak, if you could move, that'd be great."

 _I'M PANICKING—_

Washer body-checked her through the back door and threw himself after her as the third bandit lit up the hallway with a hail of rounds, then drew his pistol and continued firing out the door as he ran up and covered the unconscious one from the cover of the backdoor. Washer blindly returned fire with his Fort-12 as he half-led, half-shoved Natasha in the general direction of Not-Bandits.

At about fifty meters, both sides decided it was futile to continue shooting at one another, the primary victims of their indiscriminate gunfire having been primarily wood and clumps of grass. At this point, Washer stopped dragging Natasha like a sack of turnips and let her get to her feet, while he topped off his Fort-12 magazines and fastened his new rifle to his three point strap.

Natasha breathed.

"Miss Palinchak, your gun skills, are, rather, terrible. You know this, yes?"

 _"U.K. forevuh,"_ Natasha gasped, giving him a thumbs up as she leaned against a birch.

Washer sighed. "Miss Palinchak, I do not speak English. As it is, you are lucky I grew up in Yugoslavia or I would not even speak Russian. Please. Stop. Being. British."

 _"Sorry guv'nor. I'm tired."_

"WOMAN. I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING."

 _"YOU'RE HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE IN A RUGGED SLAVIC WAY."_

"YOU'RE WORTH A MILLION DOLLARS."

" _Thank you! I appreciate the compliment."_

"I'm just going to go now."

She was still high off the adrenaline, so even as Washer gave her his derisive snort, she trotted after him with a dopey smile, very much grateful to be alive.

—

Five minutes too late for Yipchak, who bled out in the hallway of that farmhouse, and Vanka, who didn't really get to do anything before getting shot in the face, Leech and a dozen other merry men arrived on the scene, weapons hot with nothing to shoot at. All that was left was nearly a hundred rounds of spent brass, a freshly cleaned AK-74M, two dead bodies, and two swearing loudmouths in Dimwit and Shashlik. They buried their dead with a Bandit's honors — that is to say, they stripped them to their boxers of anything of value and dragged their bodies into the woods for the birds and the dogs.

Once their goods had been divvied up, Leech turned his attention on Dimwit, who alternated between mourning Yipchak and punching the hell out of the drywall. With the help of a gun pointed at his head and half a liter of vodka, he calmed down the Dimwit into a reasonably coherent state, then led him into the barn with an arm around his shoulders, talking as Dimwit helped himself to some drain cleaner fluid.

"Now, Dimwit, my dear Dimwit, how, exactly, did three of you lose one broad and one washed up Serb?"

Dimwit's many responses all came slurred and blended together, several minutes worth of aimless monologuing, some of which had more to do with the sad state of his childhood than anything resembling current events. Something about a stubbed toe and a bad migraine was mentioned, and Vanka peeing in his water that morning. The only coherent response was the following:

"She had a gun. There were bullets in it."

"Dimwit, that's just sad. Honestly — I should shoot you. You are so incredibly useless I could cut you up for deli meat and sell you as a sandwich, and still make more off your cold cuts than you make me right now. You get me?"

Dimwit mumbled something about Kalashnikovs in a partridge tree, and nodded vaguely.

"Good. Then you won't mind taking point through the Checkpoint, right my friend?"

"I am the best salami."

"After the day is through, you certainly will be. You shall take us to the Garbage, my dearest Dimwit."

He left Dimwit there to sober up for a few minutes, and went out to his men that weren't totally sloshed / doomed to being anomaly fodder. He licked his gold crowns and scratched his stubble, giving a couple moments' thought to his speech.

"How many of you like it here in the Zone? Raise your hands."

No takers on that one.

"How many of you like bitches?"

Twelve hands were raised.

"How many of you like being made bitches?"

All twelve hands dropped.

"Well, let me be per-fectly clear—" he accentuated the point with a Hitlerian jab at the skys, "— If we let that Yugoslavian washout and that skinny British slut slip away, we'll be laughed out of Dark Valley — after Sultan has used our foreskins for handwipes. You wanna be choir boys?"

They shook their heads. Leech sighed, scratching his head.

"Enthusiasm would be appreciated. There is something to the order of a million rubles on the line here.

"And a woman with minimal STDs."

 _Now_ they were interested.

—

They made good time as evening approached. The threat of Leech behind them kept Natasha's requests for rest stops to a minimum, though Washer still was learning to bear with her hourly complaints about her unsuitable boots. The anomalies were thinner as well, even as they took the forest paths over the exposed road. There was a silver lining in every emission; sometimes, the Zone smiled, and cleared the way for desperate (and _grateful)_ stalkers.

Yet that meant the mutants were out in force as well. He saw scant signs of their activity, but he just _knew_ that there were dogs about. There always were.

And unfortunately, blind dogs were not scared of fire.

If they could just make it to the Checkpoint by nightfall, they'd be fine...

"So, how much are you worth?" said Washer, his breath growing raspy from the hours of jogging with a double pack.

"Well, I don't, have life, insurance," Natasha panted, tiring mostly from just trying to heave her own body weight around for more than a few minutes at a time. "But, I imagine, that, after not, hearing from us, for... for a few days, they'd be, rather anxious, to have me back."

"Is there a reward?"

His tone scared her. But her fear was masked by her labored panting. "Well, they put in, ten thousand pounds, in bribes. I, imagine, y'know, they'd pay, a bit more, than that."

"I don't know pounds. How many rubles?"

"Hey... I don't, don't wanna slow down, but— see that truck, the flipped one, could we, just, take, a, breathe, -er?"

"It's radioactive. You want your ovaries cooked like a pastry? How. Many. Rubles?"

He was not going to be deterred. Money was on his mind, and greed was in his eyes.

"Thirty million," she lied.

He stopped and regarded her with something that might have been a smile. "You really are hot property, aren't you?"

She grinned tiredly back at him, and having lost her momentum, collapsed forward, incidentally wrapping her arms around him. "Awww..."

"Don't get cuddly, we've got to move while there's still daylight." He put his arm around her torso and walked her forward, through the treeline, towards the Checkpoint's silhouette at the top of the hill. He could almost smell the shashliki on the fire, feel the texture of worn out playing cards on his fingers and hear the sound of hard rubles clinking on the floor...

 _Focus. Don't let this be another wipe._

They trudged in through the door, whereupon Natasha fell on the floor giggling from exhaustion, while Washer flicked on his headlamp and scanned the pitch-dark room. They were not shot, and from this he surmised it was reasonable to assume they were alone. He found a couple small oil lanterns with some kerosene still left in the candles, and spent a match to light one. There was neither fuel nor time to gather it for a barrel fire, but there were some fire blankets which were just as warm as any other. Natasha needed no instructions to wrap herself up in them and nest herself in the one chair in the room. He contented himself to sitting on a crate, cleaning his weapon as he watched the courtyard with weary eyes.

"Where are you from, Washer?" Natasha asked.

"I already told you. Yugoslavia, before Tito died."

"What did you do there?"

"Mathematics."

"You? A mathematician?"

"Applied mathematics."

"Sure. What does that mean?"

"I was in the mortar company."

"What, mixing cement?"

"No, firing bombs. Until we lost the mortar section. Then I became a machinegunner. Then grenadier. Then pointman. Finally, squad leader."

Natasha was quiet. "Which side were you on?"

"I don't have to answer that."

"No. But who will tell? There's no cameras here, no mics. I'm trusting you with my life, Washer. Surely you can trust me with your secrets?"

"You're a Westerner, a peacenik. Peace is all you've known, you can't see past that. You wouldn't understand. The choices I've made. Why I made them. What I fought for. What I fought against. Which Devil's bastards happened to be on my side. Just be content—"

"I grew up in Donetsk. My streets were owned by tracksuit wearing thugs and their pinstripe suit gang bosses. My parents died fighting that. I made it to Britain by hiding in a steamer trunk. Don't you call me a peacenik."

 _"Swayte Jaysus this is good footage."_

Washer's headlamp was on and his pistol up and aimed into the wardrobe they _hadn't_ checked. "Come out, or I make you into a wedge of human swiss cheese."

 _"Er... Natasha? What'd 'e say?"_

" _Mike?"_

 _"Yeh?"_

 _"Come out of the closet. Before Washer shoots you full of holes."_

Mike fell out of the closet with his camcorder clutched to his chest and Natasha's satchel over his shoulder. _"I 'aven't got a gun! Unarmed!"_

"Palinchak, what does he say?"

"He's unarmed. And he's a total patsy."

"Mmm."

 _"Tell 'im I means no 'arm! I'm just an Irish cameraman, I've got no fucken potta gold at the end o' me rainbow!"_

"Mike, how did you get here?" Even as he spoke, she suddenly noticed his condition, and forced her face to freeze. _Oh God, his_ _ **skin…**_

"I ran an' ran an' ran an' hid in the truck cabin, I survived can ye bloody believe it? Sure, I'm a little itchy, but I'm sure it'll be fine, aye? Workout of a lifetime, sure to be sure."

The man's skin was bumpier than the rind of an avocado, and spotted in patches of purple, yellow and green. While he'd certainly not been anything like a male model before, Natasha was fairly certain his left eye had not been the size of a golf ball. His gums were beginning to pull back and bleed as well. Mike was not doing well.

"Don't tell him," said Washer. "He's going to die, anti-rads or not. Just let him die oblivious. And quiet-like too, I hear something."

 _"Wot? Wot's he saying? He saying I'm ill? I'm not fockin' ill!"_

"Natasha, shut him up. His Irishness is going to give us away."

"Sshsssshsssh," Natasha knelt down and helped him to his feet. "No, he's just surprised you're alive. You're a very lucky man, Mike. Here, lemme take that camcorder — your hands are unsteady, you need some rest, have a sit down—"

"Quiet, something's moving around out there—"

 _"Don't touch that it stings!"_

"Shut the fuck up!" Washer spun and clocked Mike in the head with the butt of his rifle, turning just as fast to run and slam the front door.

"Natasha —"

She dove for the floor, and took the initiative to smash the lit lantern against the floor, extinguishing the light.

"Goddamn it woman _WE NEEDED THAT,"_ he hissed, unslinging his rifle with shaking hands. "Blyat blyat blyat blyaaaaaaaat..."

"What do you mean? Is it stalkers? Bandits? Dogs? And what in God's name is that panting? It sounds like an elephant's pulled a hammy."

"Natasha- shut, your, mouth." His voice shook.

She was quiet. Mike whimpered softly, his mouth muffled by Natasha's hand, while his sores opened up and leaked on her. The only sound heard from Washer was the slightest creak of the floorboards under his feet as he slowly crept, lightlessly, through the checkpoint office towards the backdoor.

And something outside was breathing very heavily as it slunk around the perimeter of the building, no sound of footsteps, only its breath.

"Natasha," Washer whispered, tapping her on the shoulder. "Get in the closet and stay quiet. I will draw their attention, and you two will run for it, towards the Garbage. I will follow you when it's safe."

"What are _they?_ "

She couldn't see him, but she could tell his face was inches from hers, could feel his shaking breath on her face.

"Pray you never know."

She did as he said, keeping mumbling Mike muffled as she tucked herself and him into the closet and shut the door. Now it was just their breathing, and the squeak of the floorboards, and that awful breathing, like some animal out of the deepest darkest cave of a natural preserve owned by Satan himself.

And now she would wait.

The seconds ticked by. Maybe they were minutes. There was only the mind-numbing terror to measure the moment, the creak of floorboards and the rise and fade of that accursed breathing to mark the passing of time. Mike would mumble about his aching head or his bleeding eyes and she would clamp her hand down harder over his mouth, clenching her eyes shut to keep from crying. The smell of Mike's living-decomposing body was almost unbearable, second only to the sound of that damnable breathing, circling them, teasing at the windows, one moment seemingly next to them only to be at the door the next. It went on, and it went on, and on and on and on, till she could have bitten through plywood so tense was her jaw, her heart was near to—

Washer opened the door slightly, and Natasha nearly screamed, but Mike clamped his slimy, rotting hand over her mouth, so instead she gagged.

"Sssssh. Quietlike. I think... I think, it is gone…"

And then it struck.

Natasha only saw a blur of motion, the scene lit only by muzzle flashes. She saw Washer dive and roll, shooting, ducking and shooting as some hunchbacked, apeish humanoid dashed through the room, blinking in and out of sight, swiping and grabbing after Washer. She never heard him shout, but her legs filled in for reason and she ran, dragging Mike after her only because she forgot to let go of him. If she had been able to think, she would have dropped him and her bag and legged it.

Blinded by the muzzle flashes, she ran up the road, the ground invisible under her feet, and her pack heavy on her back. Mike yelled and swore and cursed his fate and gibbered incessantly; Natasha could not spare the breath, could not even think but only see the image of that beast moving faster than any human being, shoving Washer against the wall and hurling him to the floor. Roars, breaking furniture, and gunfire faded behind them as they ran, punctuated by a final boom less than a minute later.

They did not stop running.


	5. Chapter 4: Eyes of the Night

Good Morning Chenobyl Chapter 4

"Jaysus, it's eatin' him! And then it's gonna eat me! Oh my G—"

"Shut up!" Natasha yelled, every ounce of will going into keeping her feet moving forward, her eyes on the ground as she tried not to break an ankle or impale her foot on the junk-littered dirt. She'd seen a landfill once (from a safe distance), but never had imagined the ground could be covered in so much rusty metal and cracked plastic that every step made a clang or a crinkle — or that she would be running for her life through the Ukrainian equivalent of a platformer spike pit.

"We're dead Natty, dead! We've got no guns, what in the name of Mary's stainless ovaries was that, why-won't-yez-talk-to-me—"

"Because I'm trying to stay alive!" She snapped, turned to give him the glare, and immediately ran into a crane strut. She went ninety degrees, dropped on her back onto a line of broken caterpillar tracks, and heard echoes as the stars spun above.

"Natty? Natty you dead?"

 _"Ay pizdetsss..."_

"Ah, that'd be a no then?"

" _DEBIL!_ Help me! _"_

 _Mike's small, debilitated brain struggled to process the scene: Natasha, a foreign woman of moderate attractiveness, coworker, was lying on her back with a shotgun next to her, clutching her head in her hands. Around him was trash, 64% metal, 22% plastic, and 14% glass by composition, much of it either sharp or inconveniently placed so as to trip the uncautious or de-foot the foolhardy. In front of them was a large hill at the top of which four crane booms met in some mysterious junk cairn of dissolved plastic and steely gray hanging moss. Behind them, in the direction of the valiant Washer's last stand, could be heard the elegant, elephantine panting of an invisible thing chasing them, probably with a desire to a) mutilate them horribly, b) drink their blood, c) both._

It took him a second to think it over and determine the most suitable course of action.

He dove for the shotgun, slid onto his back, spun, and fired both barrels into the night, absorbing the recoil with his jaw as the panting temporarily diverted (or he blew his eardrums out and couldn't hear them anyway.)

"Where ye goin' snozzy? That w' jus' a Belfast Hello! I 'aven't even sed goodbye!"

"Shut up Mike, you didn't hit anything."

"I bloody well got him, look at the all the broken shite, he's plastered!"

"That means you missed."

The panting resumed, circling them, mixed with growls and rumbling snarls. Natasha couldn't tell the distance, knew only that in the starlit darkness, it was everywhere.

"Mike, stop shouting at it and get up. Mi—"

"I need bullets- Gimme the bag!"

"No you twat, I need my gun—"

Mike ripped the satchel off of her and booked it towards the junk cairn, spilling out half its contents as he dug around for shells. Natasha heard the growling and ran past him, crawling into a crane cabin as the thing rushed in for another attack.

Mike yelled back at it and emptied one barrel, then the second; it circled and snarled to his left, and he one-handed Makarov with his left hand as he dug for shells with the right, pulling the trigger until it went click. The beast backed off for a moment, and Mike ditched the bag and ran up the cairn with a fistful of shotgun shells and a flurry of unintelligible Irish profanity.

"U, wot, mate? I'll end yew, sure as me mam's emptied ovaries!" He slowed down as he neared the top, clutching the gun to his hip and looking back down as he clambered up the glassy smooth dome of melted plastic and metal. "U want sum? Come at me ye ponce, ye sideways walkin' goose-moufed, gobsmacked blue-knobbed git! I'll give it t'ya, two express tickets t'the afterlife, where youse ken join Michael Flatley an' the cast o' Riverdance! I dare yez!"

The panting did not come nearer, and shortly, slowed, faded, until he couldn't hear it. He continued to back towards the center, licking his teeth and lips, his boiled eyeballs glancing frantically. "That's what I thought. 'Ave a nice day, wanker."

His left foot settled on the very center of the hill, and his weight broke the thin film of melted trash covering a foot wide hole, down which went his foot. He saw a brief green glow, felt a burn, and screamed like an eagle as he hurled himself down the hill, his left leg trailing smoke and dissolving scraps of flesh and bone as a geyser of acid burst up the top of the hill, splashed on the crane booms, and dripped down over the hill. Mike writhed and shrieked, blinded by tears as the monster snarled and moved in for the kill.

She couldn't watch, she couldn't stay. As he screamed and fired the shotgun again, she scrambled out the window and fled across the dump, scrambling up the next hill and hurling herself into a dump truck bed, where she rolled around in the soot, wishing she was a dalmatian and not a stupidly brave Ukrainian reporter.

 _"No, no, no! Please! I— Ma, Ma, I'm sorry I spent me tuition on coke, I'm sorry I never said thank you for yer cooking, I'm sorry I never went to church and pissed on yer Jesus statue, I'm sorry, please-please OH GOD I'M SORRY—"_

She shuddered as he was cut off by screams of inhuman agony, the loud snap of bones twisted in half and flesh rended by claws and monstrous strength. Something thumped wetly in the truck bed with her; she crammed her fist in her mouth and tried to stifle her breathing as Mike's cries subsided into dying gurgles, and finally the sounds of a meal being had.

She waited. Slowly, her pulse dropped enough that she could think. Slower still, some semblance of rationality returned, her hearing and smell sharpened by fear; the junkyard was silent except for the snapping of bones, sucking of marrow, and the wind whistling between the junk hills; meat, ripped, tendons, stretched until they snapped.

She couldn't stay here. That was suicide. It _knew_ she was nearby. She could feel it.

She had to leave. But how? This place was a maze of garbage and broken down vehicles. She didn't know where she came in, let alone how to leave. There was a map, but it was in the bag. So was her geiger counter, her detector, her radiation pills, and her gun. The spare magazines, anyway. All she had on her was her worthless smartphone.

And finding this was all well and fine, but there was the slight problem of an invisible asshole with super strength and a taste for blood.

She needed that shotgun.

Did he fire one shot? Or two shots?

One shot? Or two?

She looked over the edge of the dump truck, and saw its outline against the dirt, the monster hunched over Mike's dismembered corpse. Humanoid shape. Bald, leathery skin. Apeish arms, powerful muscles. Tentacles dangling from its face. Gleaming, solid white eyes.

She ducked back down, hands shaking, heart racing. It turned — it heard her, she knew it, she knew it, she just _knew_ —

The sound of sucking blood suddenly stopped. A hunk of flesh thumped wetly on rusty soil. A low snort.

 _Dammit, I'm up against some bloody demonic entity with nothing more than spunk and a Soviet ringtone—_

The path suddenly became clear. It was zen like, in a way.

Phone on. Timer set. Throw.

Five seconds.

A step closer.

Four seconds.

She clutched her hands together.

Three seconds.

She clenched her teeth, smelt its awful, coppery stench.

Two seconds.

She saw its fingers curl around the edge of the truck bed.

One second.

She closed her eyes.

Zer-

 _ **SOYUZ NERUSHEMYY, RESPUBLIK CVOBODNYKH—!**_

It split and ran for the phone, disappearing as its panting filled the air again. Natasha scrambled out of the truck bed and ran across the clearing, scanning the ground for a weapon: shotgun, probably empty, where was her gun, get the ammo—

It roared from thirty meters away, closing fast. She grabbed the bag and scooped up the shotgun, rolled as a powerful swipe went just over her head, felt her foot hit something, turned, saw nothing, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

It became visible a moment later, standing over her, dripping blood from its tentacles, reeking of visceral fluid, bile and gore. She could see its eyes shine off her shotgun barrels, hear its deep, growling breaths.

It reached down to grab her.

So she whapped it in the mouth with the muzzle of her shotgun.

It wasn't a particularly strong swing, but it recoiled, blinking furiously. It bought her precisely one second to prepare to meet her fate.

The monster dove on her, wrapped its immense hands around her torso, its tentacles extending to hook into her throat. There was no time for terror — all she felt was a mute sense of absent helplessness.

Suddenly it lurched off her, a man rushed it with a war cry and bayoneted it in the side, driving it across the dirt as it stumbled around, trying to regain its footing and get a proper strike in.

"Miss Palinchak, run!"

She scrambled to her feet, saw her Makarov on the ground, grabbed it and made to run.

The monster caught its foot on a piece of rebar and shoved back, advancing on the man with arms outstretched. He fenced with the bayonet, backing away as it dodged and swiped at him, his leg clearly injured as he staggered back.

"Run for it!"

Release magazine, reload. Cock slide back.

It grabbed the rifle as he jabbed at it and ripped it from his hands, seizing him by the neck as he stumbled forward. He took a swing at its face and got his arm pinned as its tentacles licked at his face and neck. "Natasha! Dammit, run!"

Safety off.

Sight picture.

She pumped eight shots into it, round after round, advancing and firing. First and second shots hit it in the leg, third and fourth whiffed. Fifth shot rose with the recoil and hit the right elbow, and its arm went slack, dropping the man to the ground. She adjusted her aim, drilled number six and seven into its thoracic cavity, and eight blew through its tentacles in a mist of meat pulp.

It fled. It turned invisible and straight booked it out of there, snarling and panting as it disappeared into the garbage.

Natasha sat down, smoking gun, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Washer sat up, cracked his neck, and scooted next to her.

They sat like that for a while, sitting on the ground, taking in the smell of trash, radiation, gunpowder and viscera, silently enjoying one another's company.

"Pretty good shot placement," said Washer.

"Look man, I'm trying here, I don't usually risk— wait, what?"

"Well, you didn't hit me. So, good marksmanship in my book."

"I... er, thank you...?"

"You are welcome."

Natasha nodded, smiling vaguely and nervously.

"Er, how did yours go?"

Washer shrugged.

"I ran out of bullets, so I beat it to death with my magazine."

Natasha finally noticed that the magazine of his AKM was covered in blood and slightly dented, bits of brain and flesh stuck to the steel magazine.

"I see."

"It was a very one-sided fight."

"I think you are lying."

"Nyet, only truth. Bloodsucker never stand chance against invincible Serb."

"Now you're just caricaturing yourself."

Washer grinned. "Okay, I admit it. I stabbed it in the eye with a bullet."

Natasha shook her head, laughing nervously and smiling the smile of utter exhaustion after the adrenaline rush. "I knew you were hiding something."

"Only to tell a better story. Come, up. We should go. Bloodsuckers hold grudges."

"Why do you call them bloodsuckers?"

"Because they suck your blood."

"Well, why not vampires?"

"Because they don't f*cking sparkle."

Natasha thought that one over. "... fair enough, I guess."

"None of that shit here. Zone is for real men. And women, I suppose. Come, we see my friend Bes, he can help us out. Bloodsucker scared of you for now. Be happy while it lasts."


	6. Chapter 5: Luck is Short

Good Morning Chernobyl - Chapter 5

They passed through a rusted out checkpoint box, scaled a trash mound, and rounded the side of a BMP to find a shotgun and two kalashes jammed in their faces and three ski-mask wearing tracksuits screaming obscenities in their ears, caught in a little ring of rusted out armored vehicles.

"I think we should drop our weapons," whispered Natasha, slowly putting her hands up, detector in hand.

"I see you're learning the language," Washer muttered back, letting his AKM hang from its sling. "Bratva, menya zovut Moyshyik, zvbut Washer, ya rabotal v Petersburgye, vy znaete o kom? Ya bratvy soldat, iz Sultana, znaete yebo? Nye khochete povredit' yego lyubodnitsu, ecli byi vy khochete chtoby Shnorka futom nasilovayutsya. Vyi ponimaete menya?"

"..."

The middle one coughed and said, "Bruh. We're not even Russian."

"I'm Lithuanian," said the one on the right.

"Son of a dog," Washer muttered.

"Don't worry bro," said the Lithuanian, lowering his rifle. " _Pizdets_ happens."

"NOW GIVE US THE GOODS!" The left one fired a round past Washer's face and jabbed his gun in his face.

Bad move.

Washer grabbed the muzzle and yanked the gun forward, pulling him into his buddies and knocking their aim off as they pulled their triggers. Bullets went high and wide as Washer dragged Natasha into a mad sprint, yanking her behind the BTR as a hail of bullets filled the air. There was a hill, thirty yards away, just barely inside sprinting distance, there they could find cover, regroup, establish a plan—

"Washer! Why are we always getting shot at?!"

"That's a stupid question if I ever heard one! Where's your gun?!"

"I-I-I—"

 _"DID YOU DROP IT?!"_

"No, I have it right—"

Natasha managed to wrench her gun out of her satchel, and in doing so, hit the mag release. Washer grabbed it out of her hand and leaned out of cover, sights aligned, three trigger pulls—

 _Click. Click. Click_.

"Dammit woman! Where my bullets?!"

"I dunno—"

"Blyat, debilnaya cyka! Otkhodi!"

"Kurva! What do we—"

"Run cyka run!"

At five yards, the bandits were still tripping over each other and picking their weapons off the ground.

At fifteen yards, they had their weapons aimed and were trading curses as they tried to decide whether to shoot the woman.

At twenty five yards, the Lithuanian said, "Forget this," and fired anyway.

Natasha stumbled as the man dragging her along suddenly fell flat on his face and her momentum died as she ended up trying to drag an eighty kilogram man up a hill. She could see the three men advancing, but their weapons were all askance and none of them quite aimed at her— she had moments, maybe—

She grabbed an empty magazine off Washer's belt and threw it as hard as she could, shouting, "Granata!"

All three men scattered and hit the dirt as she heaved Washer over the hill, the Serb groaning and cursing in the mysterious language of his homeland as she rifled through his pockets and pouches. _'Please, please have actual grenades. Please?'_

She found a detector, a spare gasmask filter, a bottle of vodka, a Nokia phone, a moldy potato, and a single crude nailbomb so rusty it might have qualified as a chemical weapon.

" _You stupid zhopi, get up! She don't have grenades!"_

This one would have to do.

She poked her head up and threw the potato, which hit someone in the chest and splattered into goop. A few shots rang out as she ducked back down, followed by more obscenities.

 _"Hey, asshole! Don't shoot her! I want that ass!"_

 _"She's throwin' shit at me!"_

 _"Man the hell up!"_

Make'em count, make'em count—

 _"The hell we takin' our time for? Let's just fuckin' get the cyka and go!"_

 _"Right, move it!"_

She had to use it now.

She stood up and threw the nailbomb as hard as she could, then ducked and coverd her ears.

 _"My_ _ **FACE! BLYAAAAAT!**_ _"_

She forgot to pull the string.

"Ay pizdets yob moyu zhopu—"

 _"Hold on, let me pull it off- wait, oh, oh shit, shit, shit the deck!"_

 _"Debil, throw it!"_

There was an explosion and a chorus of obscenities. She had a few seconds to breathe while her hearing returned.

And when it did...

 _"Ne strelyai! We want her alive!"_

 _"Dammit she's lying on top of the bastard, let's just waste'em and go!"_

 _"You stupid kurwa, she's the only woman in the Zone with no price tag!"_

 _"Yeah, pizdets, no way that asshole's getting up. Put six rounds between those shoulders, he's toast."_

She looked up, and saw all three of them over the crest of the hill, bloody and bloody pissed, but none of them seriously injured by the nailbomb.

"Oh _come_ _ **on!"**_

The middle one sneered and rolled his eyes, and looked back at her just in time to get pelted between the eyes with an empty Makarov.

"Alright you stupid bitch, you're going to get it now—"

A red hole suddenly appeared in his forehead and he collapsed in a pile. The one on his left jerked the trigger and fired a spray which went high over Natasha's head, a moment before another red hole formed in his left eye, and he jerked backwards, spasming silently before he laid still.

The one to his right swore and threw his gun on the ground, stamping his feet and cursing. "Akh, pizdets yob tvoyu mamu, BES YOU SON OF A —"

And then the back of his head exploded into his hood, and he was dead as well.

Natasha blinked.

"Thanks?" she squeaked.

The stalker melted out of the tree line, smoke trailing from the muzzle of his suppressed AK-74U. No mask on this one, he was a rugged looking man with a bushy moustache and eyes that flickered with something unusual, something odd—

"You're not totally dead," Natasha said aloud.

"It's a matter of consistency," said the stalker, squatting down to offer her a hand. "Bes the Lawbringer, madam."

"Th-thank y-you? Uh, hate to be rude —"

He took her hand and shook it enthusiastically, lifting her to her feet. "What's your name, Miss...?"

"Palinchak. Natasha Vladimirova Palinchak. Uh, he's kind of dying." She pointed at Washer.

"Well, we all are, one way or another —"

"Yeah, and he's dying of multiple gunshots. Could you, y'know, _help him?"_

"Oh. He didn't say anything. Stalkers are normally noisier when they—"

 _"DEBIL!"_

"Okay! Scavenge what you can, I'll drag him back. West by northwest, we're at the scrapyard. Big old tower, can't miss it."

Bes heaved Washer over his shoulder and immediately took off at a jog without providing the slightest hint of where west was. She didn't want to wait for him to get out of sight, so she scooped up guns, any magazines easily in view, and the camcorder, took a step, and dropped half of it.

"Ay blyat."

She looked around. She could take one of the bandits' trenchcoats, wrap all the guns and ammo up, then drag it with her like a sled. She really didn't like the idea of stripping a dead man for clothes, but she'd also seen men boiled alive, fried, disintegrated, and eaten by freaky tentacle vampires, so this was probably the least of the indignities he could be subjected to.

She'd started to undo his belt when she heard the dogs.

"Pizdets nyet nyet nyet cyka blyat I'm going now, goodbye you can keep your stuff!"


End file.
